Grieving
by xiwang.love
Summary: Post-OotP. Harry grieves his loss, and reflects on the prophecy and what it means for his future.


**Grieving**   
>>>>>>>>>>   
  
// Written by Miaka Summers (lilanimeforever@hotmail.com)   
  
  
Major spoilers for Order of the Phoenix! Don't read this fanfic until you've completed the entire fifth book. You've been warned ...   
  
**Author Notes**: I can't believe J.K. Rowling killed off my favorite character in the series! But now I understand why she said she was crying after she wrote down that part. I started crying when I read it, too. Anyways, this story is about Harry and how he's coping with his most recent loss. Reviews are welcomed, as are constructive criticism. Enjoy.   
  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter, though I wish I did. That pleasure belongs to J.K. Rowling.   
  


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Harry sat in his bedroom, staring blankly at the wall opposite him. His normally brilliant green eyes were dull and unfocused, the glimmer gone from them. _It's all my fault, _ he thought, despair crossing his face. _If I hadn't been so stupid enough to fall for Kreacher's lies, Sirius would still be alive._   
  
It had been a week since the day at the train station. The Dursleys still regarded him with some suspicion but they left him alone for a change. _'Probably afraid Moody and the others might come after them and turn them all into ferrets or something,'_ he thought sardonically.   
  
He didn't care though. He didn't care about anything anymore. Nothing mattered to him now that Sirius was gone. His grief was beyond words. The loss of his godfather was still fresh in his mind and heart.   
  
_ "Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human - "  
"THEN - I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!" Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the room... _   
  
"Damnit!" he yelled in frustration suddenly, grabbing a vase off the table and throwing it with all his might at the wall. It shattered, glass flying everywhere. Harry's head dropped into his hands helplessly. He just didn't know what to do anymore. The one person he cared about most in the world had been ripped away from him and there had been nothing he could do to stop it.   
  
The anger inside him slowly ebbed away. Taking a deep, shuddering breath to compose himself, he got to his feet and trudged across the room, his head bowed. Bending down, he started picking up the glass shards, tossing them carelessly into the wastebasket. When he was certain that all the pieces were gone, he stood up, brushing himself off. He let his gaze wander around the room for awhile, stopping as it landed on his trunk. He hadn't opened it once since leaving Hogwarts. Sighing, he dragged it over to his bed and sat down, unlocking it. He began to rummage through all his possessions, stopping every now and then to study something.   
  
His hand froze as his fingers brushed the mirror Sirius had given him. It was shattered, the broken pieces lying on the very bottom of the trunk, buried beneath all his other school things. He'd nearly forgotten all about it. It was one of the only gifts he had ever received from Sirius .....   
  
_ "I want you to take this," he said quietly, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry's hands.  
"What is it?" Harry asked.  
"A way of letting me know if Snape's giving you a hard time. No, don't open it in here!" said Sirius, with a wary look at Mrs. Weasley, who was trying to persuade the twins to wear hand-knitted mittens. "I doubt Molly would approve - but I want you to use it if you need me, all right?" _   
  
Why? Why hadn't he thought of it before? Hadn't Sirius told him to use the mirror if he ever needed to talk to him? How could he have been so stupid - there had been no need at all to use Umbridge's fireplace. Kreacher would never have been able to trick Harry into believing that Sirius had been captured by Voldemort.   
  
Kreacher ... despise and rage flared up in his body, his hands unconsciously curling into fists. Hermione had kept telling them to be nice to him, to treat him with kindness and respect. Professor Dumbledore himself had told him that Kreacher was to be pitied, that he was only what he had been made by wizards. Yet this same creature, this _thing_ had laughed, with no remorse at all, when he had been forced to reveal his betrayal. The miserable, foul house-elf deserved nothing less than death.   
  
But then, Kreacher wasn't the only one at fault; he himself was partly to blame for Sirius' death. Always playing the role of the heroic and noble Gryffindor - he was a fool. Voldemort had sensed this weakness and used it to his own advantage, and Harry had been blinded enough to fall for the trap. If only he had remembered about the mirror... but it was too late now, and as much as he wished he could, he didn't have the power to turn back time and change things.   
  
He closed his eyes, sadness coursing through him once more. All his life, he had longed for a family like the Weasleys; all he'd ever wished for was to be loved and wanted by someone who actually cared if he lived or died. He had been overjoyed when Sirius offered the chance to let Harry leave the Dursleys behind forever and come live with him. The disappointment he'd felt afterward when he learned it wasn't possible was indescribable.   
  
He had barely even begun to get to know his godfather. They'd had so little time together. Any chance Sirius had of being cleared as innocent had disappeared along with Peter Pettigrew, and he'd been forced to go on the run from the Ministry of Magic for two years.   
  
Now Sirius was dead, and Harry's last shot at happiness and a real family was gone. He brought his sleeve up to his face and was surprised to find it wet with tears.   
  
Bellatrix Lestrange ..... his hands trembled with a burning rage as his thoughts turned to Sirius' murderer. "I'll find you. I don't care how long it takes, I'll find you and I'll kill you," he whispered harshly. "You won't get away with murdering Sirius."   
  
Harry knew he had to keep going, no matter how much it hurt inside. Voldemort was still on the loose somewhere out there ... and he still had a duty. There would be no more innocent blood shed. His parents, Cedric Diggory, and now Sirius ... so many others had paid the price already with their lives, sacrificing everything in the hope that it would be enough to kill Voldemort, but it had all been in vain ... Enough was enough. There would come an end to this war one day. It would all come down to the final battle between Voldemort and himself. He already knew in his heart that he alone had the power to end all of it. Professor Trelawney's prophecy would be fulfilled. But only one of them could be the victor and emerge triumphant. Only one could survive.....   
  
_ "... AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES ..."   
  
"The end of the prophecy ... it was something about ..._'neither can live...'_"   
"_'...while the other survives,'_" said Dumbledore.   
"So," said Harry, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside him, "so does that mean that ... that one of us has got to kill the other one ... in the end?"  
"Yes," said Dumbledore. _   
  
A cold, numb feeling swept through his body. Kill or be killed ... murder or be murdered ... He had no choice. It wasn't fair. He was only fifteen years old, yet the burden of hundreds, maybe thousands of lives lay on his shoulders. If he died at the hands of Voldemort, the rest of the world would be doomed to their fate.   
  
He stared out the window, contemplating the recent events. Now that the Ministry of Magic has finally acknowledged the fact that Voldemort had truly returned, everyone in the wizarding world knew he was back. The Dark Lord wouldn't sit around idly for much longer, it wasn't the way he worked. Harry knew that war wasn't far off on the horizon. The situation was much tenser than ever before; just one little event would be enough to set everything off and then all hell would break loose. The day of reckoning was fast approaching ... would he be ready when it came?   
  
Yes. If it would save everyone else, if it would prevent the loss of any more lives, then he would give it everything he had. Even if it meant giving up his life in the process, it was a small price to pay compared to what others had given up in the fight to restore the balance of the wizarding world. His eyes glinted with steely determination as he watched the sunset, the last rays of light spilling across the sky. He was prepared to take whatever Voldemort threw his way. As Hagrid once said, whatever was coming would come, that was inevitable. And when it did, they would meet it face on. Only time would tell what lay ahead of them down the road. 


End file.
